Ketch Secor “Story The Crow Told Me”

A fine history lesson from Old Crow Medicine Show frontman.

Say what you want about Old Crow Medicine Show (the main complaint being that they introduced ‘Wagon Wheel’ to thousands of street buskers), there’s no doubt that they were instrumental in popularising the string band sound around the turn of the century. Originally a bunch of buskers themselves, they had a stratospheric rise from the streets to The Opry in a few short years. Radio loved them, and so did the old guard with the venerable Doc Watson credited for discovering them busking in North Carolina.

While the lineup of the band has been fluid, Ketch Secor has always been at the forefront. A mercurial live performer, he’s the trademark despite the inclusion of solid performers such as Chris “Critter” Fuqua, Willie Watson and Gill Landry. Now, after a dozen or so Old Crow Medicine Show albums, Secor has decided to record a solo album in the shape of “Story The Crow Told Me”, an album which is posited midway through a diary and a celebration of Nashville music as it travels from his busking days to sitting within the pantheon which includes Dylan and Cash. It’s a fine ride with Secor assisted by Old Crow stalwarts such as Furqua, Watson and Morgan Jahnig, along with appearances from Molly Tuttle and Marty Stuart.

The album opens with ‘Busker’s Spell’, perhaps the most autobiographical song here, as he, aged just 15, goes on the road, busking and meeting his future comrades. It’s given a powerful folk rock delivery with spoken word samples referencing the notion of a journey (from the banal – train announcements – to mythical with Secor referencing Odysseus), but he brings it back to earth with the final lines, which thank those who threw a nickel in his hat. It’s followed by a fast-paced talking blues on ‘Talkin’ Doc Blues’, which is essentially the same story as the band forms. ‘Ghost Train’ is a rip-roaring bluegrass trip which, aside from the band flailing away, has a frenzied spoken word interlude which refers to their breakout moment.

Secor pays tribute to the venues and folk who supported the band from their early days on ‘On The Wall’, a fine string band number, and he closes the album with an elegy to what drew him to Nashville in the first instance. As a teen, he was drawn by the legends of Nashville, in particular Dylan’s sojourn there in the late sixties. On ‘What Nashville Was’, he takes the base of Dylan’s ‘Girl From The North Country’, adds his commentary, and then layers in snippets of Dylan and Cash singing together from the days of “Nashville Skyline”. It may seem corny on the page, but it’s actually quite a fine tribute and a swell close to an album which finds Secor still well able to produce popular roots music but, on this occasion, with a hint of introspection.